Main menu

Post navigation

Salt – the bridge to flavor

Lately, there has been a flood of salts into the market. Himalayan salt, grey sea salt, Hawaiian pink salt, etc. What are all of these you might ask?

Well, they are all salt that comes from different areas and are gathered and processed different ways but what I want to outline here is what salt to use when.

Kosher salt isn’t really kosher but that is the name it goes by. This, in my opinion, is the best salt to cook with. It is made naturally, the sea water evaporated and leaves sheets of salt which are then broken up and come to you as ragged crytsals that have holes and craters in them. This makes a great salt to cook with because of the are in the crystals, which melt more quickly and is more forgiving then our second type. This is the type of salt used in every professional kitchen I have cooked in.

Iodized table salt – Mortons – this salt is manufactured, which is fine, and has iodine added (or not) and is round. Not craggily bits like the one above. It is easier to over salt a dish with this type of salt so if you are using it – go slowly and taste often

Sea salt – like Maldon are naturally sea salts that do not hold up as well to cooking and can be used as a finishing salt. Maldon sprinkled over fresh lettuce and tossed before being dressed is a great way to use salts like this. There are infinite varieties of these and fun to experiment with. A restaurant in San Francisco has an expensive steak that comes with 16 different salts on a plate and each bite is completely different depending on which salt is used. It is a great time, if not good for blood pressure.

Look in my recipes for how to use each salt – and this post is really basic, there is quite a bit out there that I don’t know about it as well.